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Friday, February 14, 2014

When Failure Is A Good Thing

An interesting thing happened. When we arrived here at the end of November, we never thought we’d be staying longer than two weeks (that’s what work told us). Just in case though, we booked our site through February 15th, assuming that would give us plenty of time. As February rolled around, I went in to pay our site rent and I was informed that we could only stay 2 more weeks. They had booked someone else into our site, and with no other vacancies in the park, it sounded like we needed to go. They tried their best to find another spot to put us in, but as the days ticked away, no one called to cancel their reservations. Epic. Fail. At the last minute, I reached out to a friend I’ve made through an RVing group on Facebook, and she was kind enough to give me the name of the park they’re staying at. We packed up our home on wheels and hit the road. She and her family weren’t going to be there, as they had already hit the road a few days prior, but they’re due back around the beginning of March. I can’t wait to finally meet her and her little darlings! (Just ask anyone where you can stay around the Phoenix area that ISN’T a 55+ park and you’re given just about 4 choices. One of those options looks a little bit iffy, 1 is too expensive, 1 we have to leave and so that leaves us with just 1 other place.) Luckily for us, they had a couple sites open for “longish-term” since we still have no idea how much longer we’ll be here. I should quickly add, that if you aren’t planning on staying there for very long (our old park), then they have plenty of slots available. It’s just we didn’t want to move every other day.

“Hope” is almost completely packed up. You can read about that process here. We just gotta check-out at the office and then we’re off!

As Nic prepares to hitch up (he didn’t need my help this time), the girls and I walk up to the office to check-out and to take a few last seconds pics in front of a couple of our favorite spots on the Resort.

We say our goodbyes in the office and once we return, we see that Nic is already to go! We load up the boys into their carriers & get them settled into the truck next to Cindy, then we load up the girls. After a couple walk-arounds to ensure we didn’t forget anything, we hit the road again. Our new park is still in Phoenix, but it’s a ways away yet.

Nic’s trying to figure out how to order that part we lost in Georgia. The wheel fender thingy. The KZ website isn’t set up in a way that he can just find the part that we need to replace…

Here’s a couple shots of the sights along the way:

Destiny RV Resort is located outside of Goodyear, AZ-west of Phoenix-in the middle of nowhere…pretty much. It’s surrounded by alfalfa & cotton fields with a couple farms nearby. I WILL miss the sounds of the donkey braying & the roosters crowing @ dawn & dusk. I will NOT miss the smell of the manure from said farms. This country girl can do without that farm smell, lol.

There’s the city off in the distance. Mmmm, pollution. Won’t miss that.

Oh thank goodness! We’re gonna be close to the mountains! I so missed them while we were stuck out in the middle of nowhere at our last park. (The White Tank mountains were behind us off in the distance…but they were just a little too distant for me.)

Imagine my surprise when our new site came complete with its own puny Palm tree! It may be kinda sad looking, but the joy in my heart to see it was huge! Everyone in this home knows how obsessed I am with these trees, lol! My Palm offers us a bit of shade in the afternoon, which is always welcomed in this state. Did you know that Palm trees are not actually indigenous to this area of Arizona? The only place where there are native Palm Trees to Arizona, is Palm Canyon in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. You can learn about it here. The tree on the other side offers us some reprieve from the sun in the mornings. I love trees! :)

Behind us, we have the loveliest view of a bluff with cacti covering it. Did you know that there are no wild saguaros anywhere in the western U.S. states of Texas, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, or Nevada, nor in the high deserts of northern Arizona? However, they are often used to portray a sense of the Southwest. You can learn more about them here.

After a long day of packing, moving across town, unpacking & playing for a little bit, we barbequed out some burgers (vegan bocas for me), hot dogs & beans and sat down to enjoy a great meal at our new park.

The next day brought with it Valentine’s Day…aka, my best friend’s birthday!!! Happy Birthday honey, I love you!!! Wish I could be there. I was supposed to go to her killer 40th party this weekend, but with the last minute move (and not a clue what to do with my kids & kitties), I sadly, could not make it. :( Just when I thought I couldn’t be cheered up, I found out that my other friend was in labor & was going to be bringing her first child into this world! I guess that’s just life’s way of bringing about some balance in my moods.

The day was spent getting accustomed to our new surroundings. Basically, we explored our new park. Boy oh boy were my girls ELATED when they saw it had a playground! You’d think they’d never seen a park before! I guess 2 1/2 months of deprivation from swings & a slide will do that to a person. (The tire swing underneath the fort was a pretty sweet addition.)

What a relief to see more orange trees around! We’ve been spoiled being able to pick all these fresh citrus fruits around Phoenix!

After I managed to tear them away from the playground, we explored the park further. They have some really tall Saguaro cacti on their grounds, along with other types of cacti. The flowers planted everywhere were awesome & I’ll go into that in a future post probably. Since it’s Spring here, the flowers are starting to bloom all over the park.

Later that day, we went to Camping World to get something. It wasn’t in stock, but you know what WAS???

THESE!!!

I am officially the proud new owner of these ultra kick ass colorful balls…er…lights.

They look heavenly at night!

Meanwhile, I lit a candle of protection for my friend that was STILL in labor…bless her soul.

After nearly 40 hours straight of intense labor, there was a complication & she had to undergo a c-section the following day. I am happy to report that her and her son are doing perfectly well & I couldn’t be happier nor more proud of her! He was born a perfect little, nearly 7 pound, cherub!!!

Later that night, per the usual, I was able to catch a shot of our 3rd Full Moon in Arizona. A 1st in this park.

Although we had screwed up big time and hadn’t booked our last park’s site far enough out, it led us to this new one. I am a firm believer that “Everything Happens For A Reason” and I couldn’t be happier that it did. Although there was really nothing wrong with our last park, it never felt like it was that great of a match for our funky little family. This new one has purple (my favorite color) everywhere, everyone says hello & strikes up a conversation with us (regardless of the fact that I look like a silly Hippy) & the flora & fauna are in great abundance. There’s plenty to do & it’s closer to more natural attractions. I don’t think I’ll ever have enough time here to photograph everything that I would like to, and that’s a good thing. The kids will soon be making new friends & we’re still close enough for Blondie and Mik to come visit us. There’s a pool, fitness room, community room, billiards table, putt-putt golf & laundry’s cheap. This park has a lot of Boho flair so we fit right in. I strongly believe that the only reason we weren’t meant to get here sooner, was so MHG, Blondie, Mik & I could meet. We may not have started off in this park, but we got here as fast as we could!

With all of us settled in and things normalized now, it’s time to get back to the daily grind. I’ll talk to you soon! (P.S. If you need our new address, please feel free to contact me.)